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COPYRIGHT DEPOSlii 



Camps and Trails 



3y 
HENRY ABBOTT 



NEW YORK 
1918 



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Copyright 1918 

by 

HENRY ABBOTT 



NOV 21 f9J8 
©G!.A5t)(S20i 






Camps and Trails 

by 

Henry Abbott 

MY rifle was standing against a 
birch tree within easy reach 
of my right hand, while I, 
sitting on a log, was eating my lunch. 
A hunter's lunch is carried in a small 
cotton bag and a string tied around the 
mouth of the bag also secures it to 
one's belt. On one side of this bag, 
faded to a pale blue from many wash- 
ings, appears printed matter contain- 
ing a trade mark, a nam.e of manufac- 
turer or dealer and indications that the 
bag once contained sugar. The con- 
tents of the bag on this occasion just 
fitted my appetite. 

While I was busily munching a sand- 
wich I became aware of a curious bird 
sitting on the lower limb of a tree at 

3 



my left find about ten yards away. I 
do not mean that he was an unusual 
bird; he wore a plain slaty-gray coat 
and was a little larger than a full grown 
robin. He was quite a commonplace 
bird and one often seen in our northern 
forests. His name is Canada jay. I 
do not know why, but he is also some- 
times called whiskey jack. He was 
curiously and intently watching me 
with his right eye. Presently he turned 
his head and studied my operations 
with his left eye. Most birds and 
many animals who live in the woods 
have a distinct advantage over man 
in the fact that their eyes are so placed 
that they are able to look in opposite 
directions at the same time. They can 
thus look for their prey with one eye, 
while watching out for an enemy with 
the other. 

This fellow was apparently not en- 
tirely satisfied with what his right eye 

4 



saw, so for purposes of confirmation he 
turned on me the left eye. I had not 
noticed his arrival. He had silently 
come after I sat down on the log. He 
now spread his wings and without a 
single flap silently skated across the 
air to another tree on my right but a 
little nearer, where he could "view the 
subject from another standpoint." It 
now occurred to me, that, possibly the 
jay bird might also be needing some 
lunch so I tossed a small piece of bread 
out on the other end of the log when 
he slid down and ate it. Then I in- 
vited him to come nearer; and pres- 
ently, when I gave him a piece of meat 
he was eating it out of my hand. 
While I was closely watching my guest, 
there suddenly and as silently appeared 
a second bird walking down the log, 
and then in a moment a third arrived 
to join the lunch party. The strangest 
thing about the incident was the silence 



and suddenness with which, like ghosts, 
the birds appeared before me, and 
when the last crumb had been de- 
voured, they as silently slipped away. 

The place where the jays and I met 
was in a dense forest about fifteen 
miles from any human habitation and 
it is probable that they had met the 
human animal so seldom that the native 
curiosity of the forest dweller had not 
yet given place to fear. 

Bige and I were hunting. We were 
living at *The Dan'l Boone Camp" on 
the northwestern slope of Crescent 
Mountain. We left camp that morn- 
ing about seven o'clock and together 
travelled down the valley, following 
one of our own trails about three miles 
until we crossed Pigeon Brook, where 
we separated. When Bige and I hunt, 
we always get far enough apart so 
there will be no possibility of shooting 
each other. Also, we hunt separately 

6 



to avoid conversation. Gossip on a 
"still hunt" is about the worst practice 
in which one can indulge. 

On this occassion, it was agreed that 
Bige should climb the eastern end of 
Wild Cat Mountain and proceed along 
the top of the ridge which extends 
several miles toward the west, while I 
hunted through the valley and over the 
foot hills, meeting him on the western 
end of the ridge for lunch at twelve 
o'clock. It was now nearly one o'clock 
and as I had been unable to find Bige, 
I ate lunch with the jay birds as above 
described. 

Since leaving Bige that morning I 
had seen no big game, but had shot a 
goshawk. Every guide and hunter of 
my acquaintance in the North Woods, 
is the sworn enemy of this bird of prey. 
No man is thought to have performed 
his duty if he allows one of these hawks 
to escape. The goshawk destroys many 

8 



song birds, but his particular object 
in life is to kill partridges. The par- 
tridge is one of our most desirable 
game birds. He has many enemies 
among the four footed residents of the 
forest. The owl also, will kill a par- 
tridge at night, while he is roosting in 
a tree; but the goshawk (sometimes 
called partridge hawk) pursues a policy 
of frightfulness amounting almost to 
extermination of the partridge. He 
will sit all day, and day after day in 
a tree in that part of the woods where 
a flock of young partridges live, watch- 
ing his opportunity to pounce upon and 
kill them one after another, until the 
last one is disposed of; when he will 
go on a hunt for another flock. 

The "Boche" which I shot was sit- 
ting on the limb of a tree eating some- 
thing which he was holding down on 
the limb with one foot. On going up 
to the tree to pick up my hawk I found 

9 



on the ground, feathers, that I knew 
did not belong to him, and a few feet 
away, discovered a full grown par- 
tridge, recently killed, from the breast 
of which a piece of flesh had been torn 
out. 

I suspect that our feeling of enmity 
toward the goshawk is not entirely due 
to sympathy for the defenseless par- 
tridge. Mixed motives may inspire us 
to acts of revenge. We, ourselves 
sometimes eat breast of partridge. 

After my luncheon guests had gone, 
I took a drink of water at a spring 
near our lunch table and considered 
what should be my next move. Fail- 
ing to meet Bige at the appointed place, 
I reasoned that, possibily he was on the 
trail of game which led in the opposite 
direction. In any case, I felt quite 
sure he would not, in returning, come 
back over the route I took going out; 
also that he would not feel safe in 

10 



crossing my path; so he most likely 
would go back on the northern slope of 
the mountain. Accordingly, I turned 
southward, intending after about a 
mile on that tack to swing toward the 
east and work back to the camp ; cross- 
ing Pigeon Brook below where we had 
crossed it in the morning. This course 
would take me half-way up Crescent 
Mountain and around the outside curve 
of that ridge. I estimated that I could 
make this course back to camp, travell- 
ing quietly as a hunter should, in about 
five hours. 

So, frequently consulting my com- 
pass, I proceeded down the mountain, 
over hillocks, across ravines, through 
swamps, often following the beaten 
path of a deer's runway ; again, forcing 
a passage through a briar patch or 
tangled witch-hopple. Then, there were 
long stretches of smooth forest 
floor carpeted with a Persian rug of 

II 



Autumn leaves of brilliant and somber 
hues, woven into the most gorgeous 
and fantastic patterns. A soft October 
breeze rustled the tree tops and partially 
drowned the noise of rasping dry 
leaves under foot. It was an ideal day 
for wandering alone in the woods, far 
from the call of the telephone bell or 
the rush and jostle of the crowded city 
street. 

Presently, coming over the top of a 
knoll, I saw a few rods ahead, a deer 
with gracefully mounted antlers which 
had recently been polished by rubbing 
them against bushes and saplings. The 
deer was making most unusual mo- 
tions. I have seen deer in the woods 
doing many queer and unexplained 
things, but this fellow seemed to be 
digging a hole in the ground as does 
a rabbit or a woodchuck. He was paw- 
ing the earth with both fore feet; was 
working hard and giving his entire at- 

12 



tention to the job, while the leaves flew 
from his rapidly flying hoofs. His 
head was turned away from where I 
stood and he had not noted by ap- 
proach, so I crept up behind a clump 
of bushes and watched the progress of 
what I believed to be a new game for 
deer to play. Presently he pushed his 
muzzle under a pile of leaves and lifted 
his head working his jaws vigorously. 
Then something fell from the tree 
above, hit him on the head and bounded 
off in the leaves. He paid not the 
slightest attention to it, but continued 
to paw the ground and occasionally 
root his nose into it like a hog. 

Then I gave my attention to the tree 
under which the deer was digging and 
saw that it was a beech and that beech 
nuts were being shaken down by the 
wind and sifted through the fallen 
leaves; while the deer was pawing the 
leaves away to get the nuts. 

13 



About this time a shifting breeze 
carried the human scent to the deer's 
nostrils and his head came up with a 
jerk. He blew a bugle blast of warn- 
ing that could be heard a mile down 
the valley, and with head and tail erect 
he bounded away down the hillside as 
if the Devil was after him. 

Just then, it occurred to me that I 
had a rifle in my right hand and that, 
for that day at least, it was my busi- 
ness to hunt deer. By this time, how- 
ever, several trees were between the 
deer and myself and though I could 
occasionally see the flash of his white 
tail in the distance it would have been 
folly to waste a shot on him. An ex- 
amination of his tracks showed that 
he was covering twenty feet at every 
jump. 

After gathering a pocketful of beech 
nuts for my own consumption, I pro- 
ceeded on my way eating nuts and mus- 

14 



ing on the good judgment of the deer 
in his choice of food. 

About an hour later I heard in the 
distance ahead, a rumbhng noise that 
seemed hke the long continued roll of 
a snare drum or the purr of an eight 
cylinder gasoline engine. I felt quite 
certain that no motor car would be 
found in this roadless wilderness but 
pressed forward to investigate. Pro- 
ceeding in the direction from which the 
sounds came, which were now repeated 
at intervals, beginning slowly like a 
locomotive starting ; I heard the bumps 
coming gradually faster and faster 
until they merged into a continuous 
rumble lasting for a half minute when 
the sounds died away as if the steam 
supply were exhausted. 

I now recognized my old friend the 
ruffed grouse or drummer partridge 
on his drumming log. With tail 

15 



feathers spread fanwise, neck feathers 
ruffed up and the points of wing 
feathers dragging, he would strut Hke 
a turkey gobbler up and down the log 
until arriving at the particular drum- 
ming spot, he stretched his neck, filled 
his lungs with air, lifted wings and 
pounded his breast-bump-bump-thump- 
bup-br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r. 

The drummer partridge— the male 
of the species is very fussy and particu- 
lar about his drumming log. It is care- 
fully selected with reference to its 
sonorous quality. He always drums on 
the same log and at exactly the same 
spot on that log throughout the season. 
Indeed the same log is likely to be used 
for drumming purposes several years, 
but it would be difficult to prove that 
the same bird did the drumming in suc- 
cessive seasons. One can, however, be 
quite certain that no two drummers 
ever occupy the same log in any single 

i6 



season. The fittest would surely whip 
the weaker one and drive him away. 

Several years ago, there was a drum- 
ming log about sixty feet back of our 
"Cedar Lake Camp." Bige and I were 
wakened early every morning by the 
old drummer announcing with his 
tattoo that it was time to get up. He 
was very regular in his habits and made 
an excellent alarm clock. 

I had by now worked my way up 
close enough to the log to study the 
movements of the drummer; indeed I 
could have knocked him off of that log 
with a club. He soon discovered my 
presence, stopped drumming and flew 
up into a tree about thirty yards away. 

We usually hunt partridge with a 
shot gun and are supposed to shoot 
them while on the wing. But if one 
meets a partridge while using a rifle 
the ethics of the woods requires that 
one must wait until the bird alights 

17 



and then shoot him only in the head or 
neck. Now, the neck of a partridge 
when the feathers are removed, is about 
the diameter of a lead pencil and the 
head is the size of a silver dime. This 
makes a small target to hit with a rifle 
at thirty yards, but it has been done, 
so I fired. The bullet passed close to 
his left ear causing him to sharply 
dodge toward the right. The second 
shot cut a feather from his neck, then 
he suddenly remembered an engage- 
ment he had with a lady bird on the 
other side of the valley. 

I arrived at camp before dark and 
had a fire started, the potatoes put 
over to boil and other preparations for 
supper under way when Bige came 
staggering into camp with the hind 
quarters of a deer wrapped in the skin 
on his shoulders. Bige had put in a 
strenuous day, had carried his meat 
from the valley west of Wild Cat 

i8 



Mountain, a distance of about seven 
miles and he had a good appetite for 
supper, which I had ready by the time 
he had put the venison in the cooler. 
The cooler was an empty pork bar- 
rel which a year earlier we had pro- 
cured at a lumber camp several miles 
down the valley; and which at great 
expenditure of effort and time we had 
rolled, tumbled and carried through, the 
woods all the way back to our camp. 
We had then scrubbed out the barrel, 
weighted it with stones and in the 
shade of a clump of balsam trees had 
sunk it in a deep hole in the brook 
flowing from our spring so that the 
water came near its top. On nails in- 
side of the barrel we hung our fresh 
meat and game, and the icy water 
from the spring flowing around the 
barrel kept the contents as hard and 
fresh as if in a cold-storage ware- 
house; while a slab of spruce bark 

19 



with a stone on top formed a cover 
to keep night prowling flesh-eating 
neighbors out of our refrigerator. 

At the supper table I told Bige about 
the deer I had seen digging beech nuts, 
and he said that in dressing out the 
deer he shot, he found its stomach 
filled with beech nuts, and that they 
more nearly resemble buckwheat, than 
any other food a buck-deer can find in 
the woods. Long after the first snow- 
fall in the Autumn one can find places 
where deer have pawed away the snow 
to dig beech nuts out from under the 
leaves. 

In the middle of the night I was 
wakened by some unusual noise out- 
side the cabin. Listening intently I 
heard footsteps softly padding down 
the path toward the spring brook. Not 
a breath of air was moving and the 
silence of the night was noisy and op- 
pressive. Straining my ears I again 

20 



heard the soft foot falls. Then a sniff- 
ing, smelling sound. Later, two bright 
stars close together appeared through 
the open doorway about a foot above 
the sill. Twinkling, shining, expand- 
ing, the stars grew into a pair of eyes 
in the darkness. The owner of the eyes 
sniffed, then spoke, apparently to his 
partner outside, — ''Uh huh !" — They're 
here!— "Uh huh! Uh huh!"— Been 
here before! — They're here again! — 
"Uh huh!" We keep a pile of dry 
wood inside the cabin for use in kin- 
dling fires on rainy days. From my 
bunk I reached over, grabbed a stick of 
wood and flung it through the door- 
day and the thieving coon in his striped 
prison garments scuttled away through 
the bush into the night. 

The following morning we found the 
coon's tracks — they looked as if made 
by the hand of an infant — in the soft 
mud near our refrigerator. 

21 



After breakfast Bige and I sawed a 
couple of blocks, each about four feet 
long, off a spruce log. Then Bige 
took a pack-basket and went back to 
Wild Cat Mountain for the forequar- 
ters of the deer which he had left hang- 
ing in a tree the day before; while I, 
with an axe and a couple of hard wood 
wedges (the same tools with which 
Abe Lincoln, ninety years ago, split 
rails), proceeded to split the two spruce 
blocks into thin staves from six to eight 
inches wide. These I sharpened at one 
end and drove into the ground on the 
bank of the stream below the cooler; 
arranging them as nearly as possible in 
a circle with the edges touching and 
making a vertical cylinder about two 
and a half feet in diameter. I put hoops 
of osier withes around the tops of the 
staves and used other slabs of the 
spruce for a cover. Then I gathered 
stones and built a fireplace on the 

22 



gravelly bed near the water. A trench 
was dug from the fireplace up the slop- 
ing bank and under the cylinder of 
staves. This was covered with flat 
stones and dirt and it served as a flue 
to carry smoke from the fireplace by 
the brook into the smoke-house on the 
bank. In the smoke-house we hung 
strips of venison — the venison having 
first been packed in salt over night. 
The fire was kept smouldering and 
smoking by a liberal use of green birch 
wood. At the end of two days smok- 
ing we had on hand a stock of the finest 
* 'Jerked Venison" that any hunter ever 
put into his lunch bag. The smoke of 
green birch imparts a spicy flavor that 
is not found in jerked meat cured by 
the Indian method of drying in the sun. 
The Dan'l Boone Cabin was built fif- 
teen years ago, and was located in this 
particular spot because of a spring of 
pure cold water which we discovered 

23 



while on a hunting expedition. It is a 
long way from any lake but is in the 
edge of good hunting country. To 
reach it, from our cottage we went by 
boat up the lake to the mouth of the 
river, then proceeded along the river 
bank past the rapids about two miles 
to the falls. At the falls the township 
line crosses the river, and we followed 
it through the woods up over the top 
of the mountain and down to one of 
the foot hills on the opposite slope. 

The township line was marked 
through the woods by four blazes on 
each tree, placed in the form of a dia- 
mond, a chip being cut out at each 
angles of the diamond. The line was 
practically straight and was not diffi- 
cult to follow, except that it led up the 
steepest part of the mountain and over 
the highest ridge. In places one had to 
crawl on hands and knees and hang 
onto roots and bushes to avoid sliding 

24 



back. We had to climb 
just the same, both go- 
ing and coming and 
with a heavy pack on 
one's back it was rather 
strenuous, and there 
were about four miles 
of the line that we used. 
I felt confident that 
a better route could be 
found to the camp and 
Bige and I often dis- 
cussed the matter but 
we continued to use the 
township line through 
the first season. One 
day during the second 
summer of our tenancy, 
while Bige was busy with some other 
chore, I took an axe and started out 
from camp, determined to mark a new 
and better trail out of the woods. 

25 




The Township 
Line 



There was a steep rocky ledge or 
rather a succession of ledges, leading 
to the mountain top and I reasoned 
that if I kept to the left and below 
these ledges I should pass over the 
shoulder of the mountain thus avoiding 
the high ridge and steep part of our 
old trail. Then, after passing the rocky 
ledges I knew that if I continued on 
down hill I should, sooner or later, 
reach water; either the river or the 
lake. This was such a simple proposi- 
tion that I should not need my compass 
so left it in camp. 

In marking an ordinary trail through 
the woods a chip is cut out of a tree 
so as to expose the white wood under 
the bark, this we call a "blaze" and it 
is usually placed about five feet above 
the ground which brings the mark as 
nearly as possible on the line of vision. 
It also is high enough to be seen above 
the deep snows of winter. The dis- 

26 



tance between blazed 
trees depends upon the 
density of the forest, 
but in passing one mark 
the next one should al- 
ways be in view. Also 
the trees should be 
marked on both sides so 
that the trail may be 
followed in both direc- 
tions. A blaze on a 
soft wood tree, a pine, 
spruce, hemlock or bal- 
sam will remain white 
and visible longer than i^ 
one made on a hard- 
wood tree. The ex- 
posed wood of a beeeh, 
birch or maple becomes stained and 
browned in a few months and is not 
distinctly visible on a dark day ; so we 
always mark the soft woods when 
possible. 

27 




A Trail 
Blaze 



It was my purpose to first go through 
and mark out the new route, then, 
later with Bige's help cut the brush and 
clear fallen wood out of the path. 

I made rapid progress, keeping the 
rocky ledges always in sight in the dis- 
tance, but working well below and to 
the left of them. After about two 
hours work I crossed a line of old 
markings on the trees that looked 
strangely like the township line, but I 
knew it was not possible that it could 
be, as the township line was more than 
a half mile to the south of where I 
stood and moreover, it ran in a differ- 
ent direction. This must be a boundary 
line of the lumber company's property. 
So I continued on with my job of 
marking trees. 

After another hour it occurred to me 
that it took a long time for me to get 
past the ledges of rock that pointed 
up to the ridge of the mountain top. 

28 



I ought surely, by this time, to be going 
down hill toward the river. So I 
stopped work to study the forestscape. 
There were the ledges in the distance 
on my right and the forest floor slop- 
ing gently to the left. There were the 
undisturbed, primeval forest trees with 
their tops a hundred or more feet 
above, branches interlaced and shutting 
out a view even of the clouds which 
now obscured the sun. There was 
very little underbrush and this sug- 
gested the thought that the task of 
clearing the path would be easy. 
Everything was as it should be, so I 
continued cutting chips out of trees on 
my new route. 

A few minutes later I crossed an- 
other line of old blazes very like the 
one I had crossed an hour ago. This 
I decided was the other side of the lum- 
ber lot. In another quarter hour I met 
a third line of blazed trees. But this 

29 



time the marks were fresh, there was 
only one blaze on each side of a tree 
and there were fresh chips on the 
ground under them. This was most 
extraordinary. I could not conceive of 
any reason for any other person mark- 
ing a trail in those woods, unless, pos- 
sibly a surveyer might be at work there, 
but I had not met a surveyor in the 
woods since the Government Maps 
were made several years ago. 

I determined to investigate, so struck 
my axe into a tree, left it there and 
started down this new trail to find the 
fellow who was making it. Broken 
ferns, trampled moss and bent bushes 
indicated that it had been made very 
recently and I might overtake the trail 
maker if I hurried up. So I stumbled 
along as fast as possible. 

In about twenty minutes I saw an 
axe sticking in a blazed tree. The 
owner of that axe must be somewhere 

30 



near and I looked around for him. 
Not finding him within range of vision 
I examined the axe. It was mine! 
There was a nick in the helve that I 
had put there myself. But how the 
dickens did it get here? Was it pos- 
sible that Bige? Yes, we had two axes 
in camp. No, that was the same axe I 
had taken out that morning. Its weight 
and shape suited me better than the 
other and so I had marked the handle. 
Puzzling over the mysterious situa- 
tion, I continued explorations. Leav- 
ing the axe sticking in the tree trunk, 
I started to climb over the rocks up 
the steep mountain side. In due time I 
reached the top and found the town- 
ship line which I had many times fol- 
lowed over the ridge. I then proceeded 
along the ridge toward the south, but 
it ceased to be a ridge after a few rods 
and I soon climbed down steep rocky 
ledges till I met a new blazed trail. 

31 



Then I went back up the mountain and 
followed the township line down the 
steep part and met another new blazed 
trial. Then I followed this new blazed 
trail until I crossed the township line 
again and a few rods further on I 
came back to the axe sticking in the 
tree. 

At this point in the game I peeled 
a piece of birch bark, sat down and 
with a stub of pencil made a diagram 
of the mountain and the various trails 
I had made and met during the day. 

This w^as the northeastern end of 
the mountain which Bige and all the 
other guides for many years had known 
to be a crescent shaped ridge. They also 
had known that the ridge, following 
its curve was about three miles long. 
My discovery consisted in learning that 
this end of the mountain was a rocky 
cone-shaped peak and about three 
hundred feet higher than the top of the 

32 



ridge. Also that during an entire Sum- 
mer we had been climbing over this 
peak on the township line and had 
thereby wasted many thousands of 
foot-pounds of energy. 

By keeping the rocky ledges in view 
in laying out my new route, I had made 
a complete circle around the mountain 
peak, had twice crossed the township 
line and intersected my own trail at the 
end of the loop. 

I reached camp about the time Bige 
had supper ready. At the table I told 
him about my new route to the river. 
"Sufferin Mike! well, by Gosh! Ha- 
ha-ha'* spoke Bige. "The next time 
you lay out a trail, you take a compass 
along, and no matter how sure you may 
be that the compass is wrong, you go 
where the compass points. Many a man 
has been lost in the woods by refusing 
to be guided by his compass and using 
his own judgment instead." 

33 



The following day, I went down to 
the lake and from the boat out in the 
middle of the lake I sighted across my 
compass over the shoulder of the moun- 
tain and determined that I should start 
from the shore of the lake, instead of 
the river, follow a course toward 280 
degrees while the needle was at zero, 
till I reached the crest of the shoulder, 
and then swing toward 270 degrees. 
This proved to be the correct theory 
and in the course of time my three 
mile trail ended within ten rods of the 
cabin. This saved us a walk of two 
miles up the river bank and a boat ride 
of more than half a mile on the lake, 
besides cutting out a steep climb where 
the grade, in the opinion of one of our 
guests, was "ninety-five per cent." 

This trail making incident occurred 
fourteen years ago. It serves to indi- 
cate how easy it is for one to go astray 
in a large forest. I have since blazed 

35 



many trails in the woods. I have also, 
many times been misplaced in the 
forest while hunting or exploring and 
am always on such occasions reminded 
of Bige's advice to ''never argue with 
your compass while in the woods." 
Whenever my compass tells me that 
camp is in a direction opposite to that 
which reason and memory and the lay 
of the land indicates, my practice is to 
sit down on a log, lay the compass on 
the log, stand the gun up against a 
tree far enough away so the steel of 
its barrel will not influence the com- 
pass needle and try to arrange in mind 
the topography of the country I am in. 
After a reasonable rest I am always 
willing to follow the pointing of the 
compass at least for a limited distance. 
The first impulse of one who thinks 
he is lost in the forest is that of haste. 
One is always in a desperate hurry to 
get somewhere quick. If this impulse 

36 



is obeyed and the now alarmed travel- 
ler rushes off at headlong speed, the 
danger is, not only that of going in 
the wrong direction, but in nine cases 
out of ten, the victim travels in circles. 
The psychology of deliberation is like 
first aid to the injured and the victim 
soon begins to realize that he is not 
really lost. He is only temporarily mis- 
laid and will soon pull himself out and 
locate some familiar landmark. 

The "Davy Crockett Camp" we 
built on a narrow shelf on a steep hill- 
side. It overlooked "Muskrat City" 
which lay in the valley directly in front 
and below our open "lean-to." We 
were well pleased with the result of 
our efforts in the construction of this 
forest boarding house. It had a fire- 
place in front for heating the camp and 
a cooking fireplace at one side. This 
arrangement kept the cooking odors 
out of our camp blankets and clothing 

Z7 



We also had a dining table and a 
kitchen table, both made of split logs. 
The water was good and the entire 
outfit comfortable. Moreover, we gen- 
erally had good luck in hunting while 
there. 

The best way to reach Davy 
Crockett's was to go up the river about 
seven miles, then take the "Elk Pond 
Tote Road" back through the woods 
five miles to Muskrat City. We also 
sometimes used another route which 
was shorter but more difficult. This 
was by way of Dan'l Boone's; from 
which point we had cut a trail down 
the valley and over the western end 
of Crescent Mountain. 

Several times I tried to get a photo- 
graph of the Crockett Camp. Because 
of its location I could get no standing 
room for a front view. If the camera 
was placed up the hill back of the camp 
the picture would show only the roof. 

38 



One day I climbed a tree with the 
camera and took a snap shot at the 
side. The artist spoiled this film in de- 
veloping. The following winter, six 
feet of snow broke down the roof and 
in a wind storm a large tree fell across 
it and smashed the shack. It was not 
rebuilt and I never got a picture of 
the Davy Crockett Camp, 

We once set up a tent alongside the 
"Cherry Pond Camp" and for a week, 
entertained there a party of six hunters 
and four guides. It proved to be a 
strenuous business to provide enough 
food for ten husky appetites. How- 
ever, they all expressed the wish that 
they might come again; we therefore, 
concluded that they were not sent away 
very hungry. 

The "Cedar Lake Camp" on the 
shore of that lake, was in a good fish- 
ing region. It was a starting point as 
well, for exploring trips. Through the 

39 



c 
5* 

S 




waters of that lake and its many tribu- 
tary streams with short carrys to other 
lakes and ponds, we could make long 
excursions by boat. 

The ''Buck Mountain Camp" was at 
first a cabin similar to Danl's. Later 
we built an open camp addition which 
we used for sleeping quarters during 
the summer but we usually slept in the 
cabin in cold weather. A short distance 
from this camp was "The Anxious 
Seat" which has been fully described 
in another story. 

One day while staying at this camp 
I was hunting in the valley north of 
Parker's Pond. Had just crossed a 
beaver meadow and entered a thicket 
of balsam and cedar trees, when I came 
upon the saddest and most distressing 
sight I have ever witnessed in the 
woods. Under the shelter of these ever- 
green trees in a space perhaps twenty 
yards in diameter, I counted the bleach- 

41 



ing skeletons of seventeen deer. Eight 
of these were small, evidently the bones 
of young animals, less than a year old. 
The ground within this space was 
trampled hard and bare of green vege- 
tation. Witch hopple bushes had been 
pulled up by the roots and the larger 
stems and branches stripped of twigs 
were left lying on the ground. Ground 
hemlock had been skinned of every- 
thing except the main stems. Even the 
bark was gone. The lower branches of 
the trees, balsam, cedar and a few hem- 
locks to a height of seven feet from 
the ground were stripped bare of twigs 
and bark. A fallen and rotting hard- 
wood tree lay partly within the circle 
of death. Beyond the bone yard, this 
tree trunk was covered with a heavy 
coating of moss. Within, it had been 
scraped and gnawed. Starvation was 
written in large letters all over the 
place. 

43 



In summer time the deer find food 
in plenty everywhere; and in great 
variety. In winter their diet is more 
limited as to variety but they can al- 
ways find enough food if they are able 
to move about. Deer can manage fairly 
well even in deep snows, so long as the 
snow remains soft. They also have 
been seen travelling on a hard crust 
formed on top of four or five feet of 
snow. But when the crust is thin and 
the deer breaks through, the thin sharp 
edges of icy crust cut his legs and a 
bloody trail marks the path of his 
floundering until, discouraged, he re- 
turns to the "yard" in the evergreen 
thicket, where he, and a number of his 
fellows herd together for protection 
from the cold winds of our northern 
winters. Within this yard the animals 
move about and pound down the fall- 
ing snow, while outside, the drifts 
grow deeper. Here, when the crust 

45 



had formed on the snow and every 
green thing within easy reach had been 
eaten, the deer stood upon his hind 
legs, stretching his long neck to its 
utmost length and reached into the 
lower branches of the overhanging 
trees for a mouthful of browse. When 
the last scrap of brush had been de- 
voured, too weak to longer stand, he 
lay down to await a slow and linger- 
ing death by starvation. And when the 
last feeble blat of the last surviving 
member of the herd trembled on the 
frosty air, the curtain fell on the sad- 
dest of all woodland tragedies. 

Every summer we find it necessary 
to cut out trees which have been thrown 
across our trails by storms of the pre- 
vious winter. Sometimes, the limb of 
a tree falls through the roof of one 
of our camps, making repairs neces- 
sary. Occasionally, in our absence, a 
porcupine gnaws our rustic camp stools 

46 



or eats up the dining table; now and 
then, some animal friend steals our 
food, but these are minor troubles that 
are easily cured or provided against. 

A few times, other people have used 
our camps, but these, if they are real 
woodsmen and know how to use a 
camp, are always welcome. To such, 
"the latch string is always out." But 
the animal we most fear, indeed the 
most destructive animal that ever enters 
the woods, is the picnicker. His bump 
of destructiveness is, if one may judge 
by his works, abnormally developed. 
He is never constructive. He calmly 
makes use of the works of others with- 
out ever saying, by your leave. Seem- 
ingly, he is never happy, unless he is 
tearing down something that others 
have painstakingly and laboriously con- 
structed. 

When your picnicker enters a camp, 
he burns up the firewood if any has 

47 



been left there, and he always uses the 
balsam boughs of the camp bed for 
kindling. Also, he uses a lot of it for 
fun, just to see it blaze up high and 
throw out sparks. He never has been 
known to cut firewood. He has no axe 
and wouldn't know how to use an axe if 
he had one; so when he arrives at a 
camp, if no wood is found ready to 
hand, he burns up the rustic seats. 
Next he burns the slats of the bed, 
then the camp table, then a part of the 
frame or roof timbers of the camp. 
When he departs the ground is left 
strewn with scraps of the late meal, 
lunch boxes, newspapers, tin cans and 
other refuse. After a few visits of pic- 
nic parties the camp is a complete and 
hopeless ruin. 

A few years ago, George and Leslie 
built a camp for Judge Bowles. It was 
located at the place where the trail to 
Bald Mountain Pond crosses High 

48 




I 

a, 

a 

o 

a 
n 

•— < 

n 

« 



Ball Brook. The camp had a frame 
made of saplings that was covered with 
tar paper. It had a good bed, rustic 
table with bark top, seats, fireplace, 
etc., and was, in every way comfort- 
able. The Judge and his friends stayed 
in his camp one night. After that, 
whenever he visited the place, he found 
it occupied by a picnic party. 

The trail to Bald Mountain Pond 
was marked many years ago by the 
Indians. It is now a well beaten path, 
known and used by Summer residents 
and boarders along both shores of the 
lake through fourteen miles of its 
length. They came in motor boats, in 
parties of four, of six, of a dozen, and 
twenty-five or thirty at a time. It was 
a short and easy walk of a half an hour 
through the woods to the camp. The 
picnickers did the rest. The two pic- 
tures "before" and ''after" herewith, 

50 



show what happened in one short sea- 
son to the Judge's camp. 

Most of the camps that Bige and I 
have built, are too far from the main 
lines of motor boat travel, and they 
require the expenditure of too much 
effort to reach them, to make them 
attractive to the average picnicker. 
Yet, mindful of the fate of the High 
Ball Brook Camp, we have in some 
cases thought it wise to camouflage the 
trail. Many novel and some ingenious 
devices have been employed to this end. 

One misguiding scheme, we success- 
fully practiced as follows. At a place 
where the trail should, properly, de- 
scribe an elbow or a curve, the blazing 
of trees would continue on in a straight 
line, leading possibly over a hill or 
down through a swamp where it would 
peter out and end in nothing. Then re- 
turning to the elbow or turning point, 
the real trail would be marked by tak- 

51 



<:' 



'f&^L 



f^mm^S 


r 


"^ 


.^ 


■ 


.',*- ^. > •v^''4m^^^^H 



The High Ball Brook Camp— after 



ing bunches of moss 
off the hardwood trees 
and nailing them onto 
balsam or spruce trees. 
This practice would be 
followed for fifty yards 
or more, when the 
blazes would begin to 
appear again. Of 
course, an old and ex- 
perienced woodsman, if 
he were suspicious of a 
trick, would never be 
caught by this one; as 
he would know that 
moss never grows on ia 
live spruce tree, except 
in small patches near 
the roots in a wet or swampy place, 
while an entire Russian beard of moss 
can be seen anywhere on beech, maple 
or birch trees. Indeed, at the place 

53 



Whiskers On 
A Spruce 



where we thus marked our trail, one 
could, without moving a step, count 
twenty or more similar bunches of 
whiskers on as many hardwood trees 
within his range of vision. However, 
the picnickers never got by. 

The struggle for existence, the 
elbowing, pushing and crowding of in- 
dividuals, and the final survival of the 
stronger, the more fortunately placed, 
or the one who arrived and got estab- 
lished first, is nowhere in nature more 
marked or more conspicuous than 
among forest trees. The weaker ones 
die before they mature, because there 
is not "room in the sun'' for the 
branches of all; and because, as the 
roots develop and increase in size, 
there is not enough room in the 
ground for the roots of all. Also, 
there is not enough plant food in the 
soil to sustain life in all the trees that 
get a start in the forest. Hence, it is, 

54 



that in the older woods one can always 
find, still standing but dead and dry, 
half grown trees of all kinds. Of these, 
the hardwoods make the very best fuel 
for campfires. And a dead spruce six 
to ten inches in diameter makes excel- 
lent logs for building an open camp or 
a cabin. The smaller dry spruces, three 
to four inches in diameter, make better 
roof timbers than do green ones. But 
they must be taken while standing. A 
tree lying on the ground in the shade, 
absorbs and retains moisture and it 
soon decays and is unfit for use for 
any purpose. Thus, while conserving 
live forest trees, one may obtain ma- 
terial better suited to his purpose than 
if he had used green timber having a 
market value. 

The State owns more than two mil- 
lion acres of forest land in the north- 
ern mountains. A few years ago, it 
was permissible to build log camps on 

55 



State lands. Recent laws forbid this, 
and now camping on forest land owned 
by the State is limited to the use of 
tents. 

Now, when Bige and I decide to 
build a shack we select a spot on some 
lumber companies' property and then 
try to get from the owners, permission 
to build. Such a permit is usually not 
difficult to get, but one must always 
furnish evidence of his knowledge of 
woodcraft, especially of his ability to 
so construct a camp fireplace as to pre- 
vent the fire spreading to the woods 
and thus destroying a lot of property. 

**The Trout Hatchery Camp" is of 
this class, the owners only reserving 
the right to use the camp for their own 
employees in case of need. I believe 
that in a period of five years they have 
so used it only twice. On one occasion 
a party of surveyors, who were correct- 
ing and reblazing the boundary line of 

56 



the companies' property, spent a night 
in the camp. On another occasion some 
men were sent over the mountain from 
headquarters to put out a fire about a 
half mile from The Hatchery. This 
fire had been started by a careless 
cigarette smoking hunter who threw 
a burning cigarette butt down in the 
dry leaves. 

The Hatchery camp was built by 
Bige and Bill at a time when I was 
carrying about with me a rather com- 
plicated harness in which was a broken 
arm ; so, I had no hand in its construc- 
tion, but I contributed a lot of advice. 
I have found it a very comfortable 
living place. 

It has for many years been our prac- 
tice, on occasions when we happened 
to have a good supply of game in the 
cooler, to go back to the cottage by 
the lake, collect our women folks and 
lead them over the trail to camp, where 

57 



we would give them an exhibition of 
real camp cookery; while we roasted 
a saddle of venison before the camp- 
fire, serving it to our distinguished 
guests while they sit upon logs around 
our rustic camp table in the shade of 
the towering forest trees. Thus do we 
square ourselves, justify long absences 
and gain new indulgences. 

There is a wonderful spring at The 
Hatchery. The water is very cold and 
there is a large volume of it boiling 
out of fissures in the rocks on the 
mountain side. Indeed it is the begin- 
ning of a fair sized brook which 
tumbles over the boulders and swiftly 
rushes along its gravelly bed just back 
of the cabin. By its music we are 
lulled to sleep at night and it is the first 
sound to greet us at day break. 

Bige allowed that it was a great pity 
that there were no holes in that brook 
with water deep enough for trout to 

S8 




Basting a Venison Roast 



live in as the water was ideal for that 
purpose. Trout are fond of cold spring 
water. They flourish best in it. Be- 
sides, the nearest trout brook was two 
miles away, and sometimes, during the 
open season, we need fish. So, said 
we, ''let's make some holes." 

Immediately, we got busy building 
a dam across the stream near the shack. 
We employed some of the methods of 
Brother Beaver, which, though primi- 
tive, are none the less effective, and we 
soon had a pool of water from three 
to four feet deep, seventy feet long and 
twenty feet wade at the dam. Then se- 
lecting our smallest hooks, we filed off 
the barbs and went down to Pickwacket 
Brook where we caught some trout 
which we kept alive and brought back 
in a bait pail. Many and frequent 
changes of the water were necessary 
to keep our fish alive, but they were 
safely deposited in the pool. 

60 




X 

a 



a, 

V 

G 
C 

5 
< 



Then, a more pretentious plan was 
devised and in carrying it into effect, 
we built other dams, five in all, with 
stretches of swift water between. 
Gravelly and sandy spawning beds 
were provided in the shallow water. 
Overflow or spillway places were made 
on one end of each dam, so that the 
fish might freely pass up or down from 
one pool to another. Stones and over- 
hanging banks made suitable hiding 
places for the shyest and most wary 
fish known to anglers. In short, we re- 
produced as nearly as possible the most 
favorable conditions for the natural 
propagation of brook trout. 

Many fishing trips were made be- 
fore we considered our hatching ponds 
sufficiently stocked. At first we fed our 
fish daily, but we soon learned that 
they had natural food in abundance 
and that they preferred it to what our 
catering provided. 

62 



During three summers that our ex- 
periment in pisciculture has been in 
progress, not the least of the pleasures 
of life at Camp Hatchery, is found in 
watching the spawning beds, observing 
the play of schools of fingerlings, or 
lying on the shore of one of the pools 
in the evening twilight, to see the larger 
trout jump clear above the surface and 
grab a passing fly or moth. 

Enemies of the brook trout, neither 
those of the two-legged nor those of 
the four-legged varieties have yet seri- 
ously raided our fish farm. Individ- 
uals of the original planting have now 
developed into the most desirable sizes 
for table use. And it is now possible 
for me, in the morning while Bige is 
lighting the camp fire, to take a fly rod, 
go twenty yards back^ of the cabin to 
one of the pools and by the time Bige 
has the coffee made and the bacon 

63 



cooked, have my breakfast trout 
caught, dressed, and in the frying pan 
before they have finished flopping. 



64 



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